April 22, 2024
It’s World Book Day! We’re big readers here at GZERO, and we suspect you might be as well. Alas, literature just doesn’t have the caché it once did, but in some ways we are living in a golden age of literacy. At no point ever in human history have so many people been able to read and write.
Some 87% of all people above age 15 were able to read as of 2022, up from 67% as recently as 1979. That’s a big bump, but wind the clock back a bit more to see just how far we’ve come. In 1820, the World Economic Forum estimates that just 12% of the world’s adults could read and write.
Have a look at recent progress in our chart, and don’t forget to crack open that book you’ve been meaning to get to today!
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Think you know what's going on around the world? Here's your chance to prove it.
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REUTERS/Stringer
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A Russian LNG tanker, Arctic Metagaz, damaged earlier this month and currently adrift without crew, floats in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea between Malta and the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Linosa, in this handout picture released on March 13, 2026.
Marina Militare/Handout via REUTERS
700: The tons of fuel and liquefied natural gas aboard a Russian tanker that is currently floating around the Mediterranean Sea unmanned, after a drone attack earlier this month prompted the crew to abandon ship.
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